


how big the hourglass, how deep the sand

by Magepaw



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet, Blood and Injury, Bugs & Insects, Canon Compliant, Disturbing Themes, Insecurity, M/M, Mild Gore, Pining, Science, Short One Shot, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24745546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magepaw/pseuds/Magepaw
Summary: The ants are so small and light. Their touch barely registers as anything at all. Lines of them walk together, dutifully following the scent trails laid before them. It feels no more intrusive than a blade of grass brushing along his cheekbone. They are so diminutive, and yet effective as a design, capable of great feats of strength. They follow their orders without question. They do not feel pain when they are torn to pieces.If his limiter functioned properly, perhaps…
Relationships: Belial/Sariel (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	how big the hourglass, how deep the sand

**Author's Note:**

> pre-rebellion drabble, sariel returns from a mission that turned unexpectedly violent... sort of a prequel companion to [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24502969) which is why the titles match :3c surely nothing bad happens to him in between then and now haha

Sariel lies perfectly still. Blades of grass tickle against his cheek as a breeze stirs, carrying with it the sweet scent of clover and apple blossoms. He is content in this moment, watching the ants march in neat little lines across his pallid skin.

It is quiet in the meadow where he landed, and so the blur of words and colors tumbling in his mind begins to settle into quiet as well. The ants are so small and light. Their touch barely registers as anything at all. Lines of them walk together, dutifully following the scent trails laid before them. It feels no more intrusive than a blade of grass brushing along his cheekbone. They are so diminutive, and yet effective as a design, capable of great feats of strength. They follow their orders without question. They do not feel pain when they are torn to pieces.

If his limiter functioned properly, perhaps…

A shadow crosses over him, the rhythmic beat of wings in the sky drifting to his ears. He does not stir. Things happen too quickly on the battlefield – his body moves faster than his thoughts can follow, instinct overpowering his nature – but the fragments of memory are still within his mind, fresh and vivid, and it is in the quiet moments that he must sort through them to find some semblance of peace again. Sometimes, when the sensations get too jumbled up, it takes a long time to put them back in order again.

Sariel's long fingers twitch in the grass, grasping nothing but remembering the phantom weight of his scythe.

The wing beats grow louder, more insistent. An unnatural wind buffets long strands of hair into his eyes, ruffles his feathers, scatters the ants. Someone lands in front of him, wings blotting out the daylight. Slowly a pair of well-polished dress shoes slide into his field of vision. He blinks slowly, uncomprehending.

Black leather slips delicately underneath his chin and tips his face upward. Sariel struggles to pull the words he needs up from the depths of his mind. He feels… disoriented, dazed. He left too much of himself on the field, this time. His mouth opens around the shape of the name, but he has forgotten to draw air, and so his vocal cords make no sound the first time he attempts to use them.

"I thought I'd find you feeding the ants," the voice says conversationally, "but this wasn't exactly what I'd pictured."

"Deputy head," Sariel croaks, remembering to breathe this time. "I completed the mission."

"Sally," Belial says reproachfully, squatting to Sariel's level and ruffling his hair. Brilliant crimson eyes gleam as they sweep over what's left of Sariel's body. He whistles. "They really rode you hard, didn't they? Pity ol' Lucifer was too busy to help out. I'm surprised you were able to fly at all, with over fifty percent missing…"

Belial's hand on his head is warm, as it always is. Sariel blinks, filtering through the haze. The touch grounds him to reality.

"The ants have also taken some of my body since I landed," Sariel points out truthfully.

Belial laughs, though Sariel is not sure why. Belial finds humor in odd places. His assignment is that of cunning, and so the domain he presides over is one that Sariel does not hope to understand.

"We need to get you back to the lab," Belial tells him. He is still smiling, though whether it is the warm smile reserved for him, or the sharper, darker grin Belial wears while basking in the head researcher's shadow, Sariel is not certain. "Don't want to let these little guys eat the rest of you, do you?"

Belial reaches over him, but it is only to brush some of the ants harmlessly off of his neck and shoulders. He has learned not to crush them in front of Sariel. Belial is kind to consider his feelings.

"It does not matter. I will regenerate," Sariel murmurs, unconcerned as Belial's arms lift his remnants from the grass. There is little of him left below the ribcage, but Belial cradles him to his chest all the same. His wings drag in the dirt, trailing as limp as his hair. "But worker ants are females, deputy head. Not 'guys'."

"Oho?" Belial hums, eyes glinting with interest. "You learned the difference between male and female? Is that something Faa-san taught you?"

Sariel can feel the vibration of his deep voice rumbling in his chest. He tucks his face in closer as they take off, to feel it more distinctly. Belial's hands are gentle but firm, holding him close. Heavy wing beats thrum in the air around him, air currents battering his hair every which way. He finds it oddly disorienting to be carried in the sky and not have control over one's flight.

"Yes," Sariel answers after a long pause, furrowing his brow. "I found ants carrying eggs and asked what their purpose was. I was told eggs are something like angel cradles for insects, although I do not fully understand the explanation. Sexes are for biological creatures such as the head researcher, correct? But only the females create cradles?"

"That's right," Belial says, sounding amused by some joke only he is privy to. Black wings crowd his field of vision, so Sariel casts his gaze downward, watching the ground recede. He stares placidly as some unidentified materials slip loose from his open cavity and splatter dark against the spring green of the meadow below. The ant colony will make use of his parts, hopefully.

Sariel's thoughts drift as Belial chatters on in his researcher voice. "The presence of gonads is what determines the sex of the creature for reproductive purposes. From insects to Astrals, organic creatures rely on their organs for functions like reproduction to continue the species, as well as maintaining homeostatic regulation, respiration, digestion, et cetera. It's a messy system that involves a lot of fluids, and if they fail, the creature dies. Completely different from you and me, who can be broken and rebuilt endlessly."

Sariel ponders the information, mulling it around in his head. He is aware that biological creatures require their organs in the way that primal beasts require their core. His scythe has spilled many of their parts, and he has witnessed them cease to function as a result. Even the moondwellers, who bypassed the limitations of their own biology, modifying their forms to function through synthetic processes, could still be reaped like sheaves of wheat. If he does so efficiently, their execution will not cause them suffering, and so it is this efficiency he strives for in his assignments.

Death is a harder concept to grasp than pain. Sariel does not like causing pain.

"You and I still have internal organs though," Sariel observes. He feels the rise and fall of Belial's lungs, breathing when he does not have to. He feels the steady thudding of Belial's heart, and the heat of his blood, synthesized by Lucilius' hand. Sariel feels the wind tugging at the loose flaps of his own muscle and skin where he has been gutted, and still he continues to exist. "If we cannot die when our bodies are destroyed, are we really alive?"

"Mmm, that's probably a question for Faa-san," Belial shrugs, unconcerned. "Or the high council. The ethics of primal beast construction isn't really up to us, is it? We're just the end result."

"If we do not need bodies to live, why do we have them?"

"Different purposes. You have Faa-san to thank for that," Belial replies. There is warmth and pride in his tone when he speaks of the head researcher. This, too, Sariel may never understand. He listens obediently to Belial's melodic voice as the wind whistles past them. "Faa-san shaped the first primals in his own image, echoing the construct of Astrals, giving them blood and bones and pretty faces to look at. The council hates it, of course: the core can support any shape, so why bow to the laws of nature? Why remain bound by the limits of vascular systems and skeletons and gravity? Shape a weapon like a weapon. Don't give it pain receptors and personalities and _feelings_. Just give it a trigger to pull."

Sariel does not disagree with this criticism. It would be easier if he were a simple weapon, a tool to be used, a worker ant mindlessly following pheromones. But he does not know how to tell the head researcher that there is a mistake in his construct. He wonders if the head researcher will notice the error in his core now that Sariel has been flayed open like a specimen on the dissection table. He does not need a heart, but there is one still feebly beating behind his ribs, ebbing his fluids out onto Belial's clean white uniform. They could remove it, if they decided he would be more efficient without one.

"So why did the head researcher build the primarchs this way?"

It is a query Sariel does not expect to be answered. He expects Belial to laugh in the way he always does, with that familiar mixture of amusement and pity, regarding Sariel as a curiosity to be studied and little more. But Sariel cannot help but admire him, so quick and clever and charismatic and everything that Sariel is not. Even if Belial is only humoring him as a way to distract him on their flight to the laboratory, Sariel still wants to listen to him speak forever. But Belial does not laugh.

"I guess you're one of us now, right? This is strictly classified, so it'll be our little secret, but – it's about the wings," Belial says suddenly.

Sariel gasps as Belial's hand slides along his back, locating the junction where feathers jut from skin. His hand is firm around the base of the hollow bone, fingers prodding at the sensitive sac swollen beneath the surface. It sends conflicting electric signals juddering up and down what's left of Sariel's sensory receptors. Sariel shudders. His wing stirs briefly, twitching in reflex as it struggles to flap.

"Ahh," Sariel finally whimpers, squirming feebly from Belial's touch.

There is nowhere for him to go. His wings have been handled before, examined, clinical and efficient, but no one has ever touched his core in such a way, and he does not know how to react to the insistent press of fingers. He cannot discern if it is pain or pleasure lighting up sparks within his ragged frame – it is merely sensation, and it is wholly overwhelming. The beleaguered wing dematerializes in a flash of light, returning to its core buried beneath his skin.

"Sensitive, isn't it?" Belial hums, though he does relax his grip. The pressure ebbs back into numbness. "All the primarchs are built like this. How did Faa-san put it, again? If the core was a seed, and the flesh was the soil, then the wings are the plant that grows from it? Our wings have to be grown out of organic material, so that's why we have blood and guts to fertilize them. But they can be transplanted, too – if the soil is right. We're still collecting data on that, but it's fascinating stuff—"

Sariel whines in Belial's arms, weak and confused and helpless. Belial looks down at him, hungry eyes blown dark.

"—That, or Faa-san is just a sadist who likes to watch us bleed. Which is probably also true," Belial confides with a wink. "My turn, now. You don't enjoy violence. So why did you fight so hard on that mission, Sally?"

Sariel draws a shaky breath, blinking dazedly up at Belial. His head is swimming from the sensory overload. It takes a great effort to concentrate on the words Belial is saying, and parse them into something he can respond to.

"It is my purpose. I was told to," he whispers.

"No, no," Belial corrects, dismissing him. His gaze is sharp, inscrutable, like he's trying to solve a puzzle. "No one ordered you to keep fighting once half your body was gone. No one ordered you to fly all the way home without waiting to regenerate. What's your motivation, outside of your purpose?"

Sariel considers this. He is not sure how to reply. Sariel always comes back because this is where he is supposed to be, and there is nowhere else to go. He does not know if the fallen angels would bother to retrieve his core should he fall in battle. He thought only of the tranquility of the meadow, quiet and still, and let his other thoughts fall aside into nothingness.

"No one… told me not to," Sariel explains haltingly. He hopes that is the correct answer.

Belial barks a laugh, though it does not sound like a kind one, and mutters something about third generation limiters. His hand strays upward, cradling the back of Sariel's lolling head to stabilize him as he begins his descent. The beats of his wings slow, conscious of the turbulence and trying not to jostle his cargo.

"Faa-san will be pleased the mission was a success. Is there anything you want to do after this, as a reward?" Belial presses, heels landing with a light clack on the roof of the research facility. "I know you dislike the exams. I can free up some time if you want to go back and watch the ants together, you and me."

Sariel considers this, his thoughts fading again as his strength wanes. A reward. There is not much he wants. He does not understand his own nature as well as Belial seems to, and besides, he can barely think straight right now.

Living creatures fight in order to not die. Sariel does not know why he fought, other than to return here. He is unsure if an existence like his is something worth fighting for. Probably not. But he does enjoy the moments when he is allowed to exist at his own pace without need for words. He likes watching the ants toil in the dirt, calming and methodical, tiny perfect bodies thrumming with life. He likes Belial, who indulges him in these things when no one else does.

"I do want that," Sariel says. The memory of a warm hand grasping his wing sends a fresh shiver down his spine, and his eyes dart aside, breath caught sharp in his throat. Their little secret. Tell no one. "…If that's okay."

"Of course it's okay," Belial smiles graciously. "Let's go get you patched up."

It must be boring for someone like Belial, so bright and clever, always overflowing with knowledge and observations and purpose, to waste his time with someone as dull as Sariel. And yet Belial never complains, even when Lucilius scolds them both for making a mess out of the exam room, for ruining Belial's pristine white uniform and costing him an afternoon's work. Truly, Belial is kind.

**Author's Note:**

> rolls up my sleeves and fills the ship tag by myself


End file.
